[DeTomaso] Fw: Tapered Bearing problems

[JDeRyke at aol.com]

In a message dated 12/28/08 4:06:28 AM, hemipanter at hemipanter.se writes:

> Are there any drawings of the set up around to take a look at? In the case 
> of original bearings it is common for water to find its way in between the 
> bearings and rust the distancer stuck to the axle.
> 
The design of this conversion has the front seal laying against a flat 
surface (the front of the inner bearing race), while the seal itself was designed to 
envelope a shaft or tube. So only a very slight amount of force flips the 
seal's lip back and lets water in. It's simply the wrong seal for this collection 
of parts, and several engineers have commented over the years that 'that seal 
just can't work that way'. They're right. Over the years, I've heard from 
nearly a dozen owners who lost tapered bearings to water intrusion.
In my tapered roller conversion, I used much the same seal except I made a 
short tubular spacer between the stub axle flange and the front bearing, so the 
seal actually has something to envelope. With this simple but 
expensive-to-fabricate change, no water leaks and no bearing problems in 15 years of all kinds 
of weather driving- including going thru the dreaded automated car wash. 
But its all kind of wasted effort since stock ball bearings work just fine in 
Pantera carriers- the tapered conversions were done when we didn't understand 
why ball bearings were failing- and it turned out to NOT be the bearings at 
fault but undersized factory axle shafts wearing out- now fixed with new 
factory axles or the popular billet ones, made to the correct size.   My 2¢- J 
DeRyke


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